HB 113 
.T8 S7 
1916 
Copy 1 



TOLSTOY'S INTERPRETATION 

OF MONEY AND PROPERTY 



By 
MILIVOY S. STANOYEVICH, M.L. 

( University of California) 



Reprinted from "Liberty", December, 1916. 



Liberty Publishing Co. 
Oakland, Cal. 



TOLSTOY'S INTERPRETATION 

OF MONEY AND PROPERTY 



By 
MILIVOY S. STANOYEVICH, M.L. 

( University of California) 



Reprinted from "Liberty", December, 1916. 



Liberty Publishing Co. 
Oakland, Cal. 






&ifi 



TOLSTOY'S INTERPRETATION OF MONEY AND 
PROPERTY 

A. Interpretation of Money. 



Assuming that our society may exist without positive 
laws it could also exist without money. The Russian 
reformer, Leo N. Tolstoy, is consistent with his doctrine 
of social reform (1). According to him enacted law is 
violence, private property is evil, and subsequently "money 
as a centre around which economic science clusters"(2) 
cannot be anything else, but a medium of oppression (3). 
Describing the economic nature and offices performed by 
money, he dissents widely from the politico-economists and 
disapproves of their teachings on the same subject-matter. 

At the outset of the seventeenth chapter of his notable 
work, What Shall We Do Then, Tolstoy inquires, What is 
money? And further on he proceeds: "I have met educated 
people who asserted that money represents the labor of him 
who possesses it. I must confess that formerly I in some 
obscure manner shared this opinion. But I had to go to the 
bottom of what money was, and so to find this out, I turned 
to science. Science says that there is nothing unjust and 
prejudicial about money, that money is a natural condition 
of social life —necessary : 1. for convenience of exchange; 
2. for the establishment of measures of value; 3. for saving; 
and 4. for payments"(4) . 

Are these theories true? According to the teaching of 
economics they are; according to Tolstoy they are not. 
Many writers even those of the earliest time argued that 

]1] "If Tolstoy's teaching is not systematic, two facts may be urged in 
extenuation: his doctrines, so far as he expounds them, are consistent in 
themselves" — says T. S. Knowlson in his biographical and critical study 
on Leo Tolstoy, ch. VII, p. 143. [London, 1904]. 

[2] See J. W. Harper, Money and Social Problem, ch. V, sec. I, p.98. 

[3] What Shall We Do Then, ch. XIX, p. 127. [Wiener's ed. 1904]. 

[4] hoc. tit., ch. XVII, p. 100. 



money is a medium of exchange (5). The founders of classi- 
cal economics, Smith (6), Ricardo (7), Mill (8), Carey (9), 
socialist reformers, Lassalle (10), and Marx (11), all agree in 
the main that money is an exchangeable commodity by 
means of which people measure the value of other commo- 
dities. Professor Fisher shortly and precisely defines money 
as What is generally acceptable in exchange for goods (12). 
More acute determination of the nature of money is given by 
Prof. Kinley in his elaborate study on Money (13). According 
to this author no definition of medium of exchange can be 
framed on the basis of the material of which it is made 
but on the basis of its services, and its essential services 
are three fold: 

First, money is sometimes used to describe all media 
of exchange — gold, silver, paper, checks, bank drafts or the 
deposits which they represent, commercial bills of exchange, 
and even corporarion stocks. These things all effect exchan- 
ges; in a way they all relieve the difficulties of barter. 
But this definition, however, is too inclusive, Prof. Kinley 
contends. It is inclusive because all mentioned articles do 
not attain the character of media of exchange because there 
is a demand for them for that purpose primarily. The me- 
dium off exchange includes money but its content is greater 
than that of money. All money can be a medium of exchange 
but all medium of exchange is not money (14). 

Second, at the other extreme is a set of definitions which 
would restrict money to what may be called commodity 
money. Those who hold this view insist that money is an 
article of direct utility with specific value based on its 
direct services for consumption. They hold that it must have 
value due to a demand for other than a monetary system. 

[5] Cf. for instance, Plato, Laws, ch. XI, and Aristotle's Politics, bk. I, 
ch. 9; Nicomachean Etics, by Aristotle, bk. V, ch. 5. — Roman authors 
defined money as a "just medium and measure of commutable things" 
Moneta est justum medium et mensura rerum commutabilium, quoted in 
H. C. Black, Dictionary of Law, p. 785. [1891]. 

[6] Wealth of Nations, bk. II, ch. II. 

[7] Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, ch. XXI. 

[8] Principles of Political Economy, bk. Ill, ch. VII. 

[9] Principles of Social Science, vol. II, ch. XXX, 1. 

[10] Die Philosophic Heracleitos des Dunkeln, vol. I, p. 22. [1845]. 

[11] Capital, English ed. part I, ch. III. 

[12] The Purchasing Power of Money, ch. II, ces. 1. [New York, 1911]. 

[13] D. Kinley, Money, a Study of the Theory of the Medium of Ex- 
change, ch. V, 6. [New York, 1913]. 

[14] Some excellent hints as to the money-commodity, compare 
H.White, Money and Banking, bk. I, ch. I. [New York, 1908]. 



The implication is that in the absence of this other demand 
the article would not have any value and therefore could 
not properly serve as a measure of value. This view of the 
nature of money is definite and clear-cut, but it is not cor- 
rect because the article has value if there is a demand for it, 
whatever the reason for that demand. 

Third, between these two extremes fluctuates the view 
that all media of exchange and payment, whose acceptance 
the law requires in discharge of debts, may properly be 
called money. This definition confines to standard money, 
or inconvertible paper, if it were legal tender. Both kinds 
of money circulate without reference to the possibility 
of recovering their value from the payer if they should fail to 
pass, and their value as money depends entirely on the fact 
that they are generally acceptable in exchange (15). 

Taking now in view these three standpoints of the nature 
of money, we could define it in these words: Legal tender, 
inconvertible paper, and all commodities which are used as 
general circulating and paying media, are properly called 
money. 

This is one of the most typical definitions including nearly 
all others supported by current political economy. Tolstoy 
as always disagrees with the teaching of economics and 
he simply says that money is a new and terrible form 
of slavery (16). His full definition is as folows: Money is a 
conventional token which gives the right, or more correctly, 
the possibility, to exploit the labor of other people (17). To 
explain this inadequate definition of money more approp- 
riately and in its fuller extent, it is necessary to turn our 
attention to the functions of money as they are enunciated 
by Leo Tolstoy. 

One of many other functions which money performes, 
according to Tolstoy, is the representation of labor. There 

[15] Valuable suggestions on standard money, see W. A. Scott, Money 
and Banking, ch. I, sec. I. — J. L. Laughlin, The Principles of Money, 
ch. III. — J. B. Clark, The Ultimate Standard of Value, in Yale Review, 
Nov. 1892, vol. 1, p. 258-74. — The same subject is well treated by 
C. Manger in an article entitled "Geld" in the Handwoerterbuch der 
Staatswissenschaften, bd. IV. [1900], and L. Nasse, "Das Geld und 
Muenzwesen" in Schoenberg, Handbuch der Poliiischen Oekonomie, 
bd. I. [1896]. ' 

[16] What Shall We Do Then, ch. XXI, p. 164. [Wiener's ed.] 

[17] Id. Ibid. ch. XXII, p. 161. 



exists a common opinion that money represents wealth, 
but money is the product of labor, and so money represents 
labor (18). This opinion, says Tolstoy sneeringly, is as 
correct as that other opinion that every political organiza- 
tion is the result of a pact (contrat social). Yes, money re- 
presents labor (19). there is no doubt about that, but whose, 
labor of the owner of the money, or of the other people? In 
that rude stage of society, Tolstoy goes on, when people 
voluntarily bartered the fruits of their products, or exchan- 
ged them through the medium of money, substantially 
money represented their individual labor. That is incontes- 
tably true, and this was only so long as in society where this 
exchange took place, has not appeared the violence of one 
man over another in any form : war, slavery, of defence of 
one's labor against others. But as soon as any violence was 
exerted in society, the money at once lost for the owner its 
significance as a representative of labor, and assumed the 
meaning of a right which is not based on labor, but on 
violence (20). This is one of the functions of the medium 
of exchange in the pages of Tolstoy. 

The second function of money is the representation of the 
standard value. " Catallactics" admits this function of 
money. Tolstoy himself should recognize it in an ideal state 
of society, in a society where extortion has not made its 
appearance (21). If people exchanged directly commodity 
for commodity; if they themselves determined the standards 
of values by sheep, furs, hides, and shells(22),then one could 
speak of money as an instrument of exchange, as an ideal 
standard of value in an ideal state of society. But in such 
a society there would be no money as such, as a common 
standard of values, as it has not existed and cannot exist(23). 
The standard value of money is determined by law and 
government, and these institutions are based chiefly on 
deceit (24), or represent the organized force (25). What in 
recent time receives a value is not what is more convenient 
for exchange, but what is demanded by government. If gold 

[18] What Shall We Do Then, ch. XXI, p. 158. 
[19[ Op. cit., p. 160. 
[20] hoc. cit. ch. XXI, p. 159. 
[21] Id. lb. ch. XIX, p. 126. 
[22] Op. cit. ch. XVIII, p. 122. 
[23] Id. ib. ch. XIX, p. 126. 

[24] Patriotism and Government. Complete Works, vol. XXIII, p. 538. 
[Wiener's ed. 1904]. 

[25] The Slavery of Our Times. Comp. Works, vol. XXIV, p. 128. 



is demanded gold will be a common denominator, if 
knuckle-bones are demanded, knuckle-bones will have 
value (26). If this were not so why has the issue of this 
medium of exchange always been the prerogative of the 
government? In such a state of society in which we live, 
the standard of values ceases to have any significance, 
because the standard of value of all articles depends on the 
arbitrary will of the oppressor (27). By this reason we could 
speak only on arbitrary and conventional value of money, 
not of its intrinsic, nor of its standard value. 

Passing now to the third function of money, enumerated 
by Tolstoy, we see that he attributes to it a new contingent 
service which is not mentioned as such in any political eco- 
nomy. In modern civilised society, he says, all the govern- 
ments are in extreme need for money, and always in insol- 
vable debt (28). Wherefore they issue monetary tokens in 
the different countries (29). These tokens: legal tender, 
inconvertible paper, coin, bills, and other governmental 
fiats, are distributed among the people, in order that later 
they could be collected as direct, indirect, and land taxes(30). 
The debts of the present monetary state grow from year to 
year in a terrifying progression. Even so grow the 
budgets (31). A state which should not levy taxes, for a com- 
paratively short time would go to bankruptcy. The taxes 
and imposts required from people may be paid in form 
of cattle, corn, furs, skins, and other natural products, but 
this " natural economy" never practices in a civilised state. 
Governments force people to pay those taxes usually in 
"hard" or "soft" cash, because this kind of money best 
suits the purposes of rewarding the military and civil offi- 
cials, of maintaining the clergy, the courts, the construction 
of prisons, fortresses, cannon (32), and supporting those men 
who aid in the seizure of the money from the people (33). 
So we have the third function of money as the third method 

[26] What Shall We Do Then, ch. XVIII, p. 122. 

[27] Id. Ibid, ch. XIX, p. 127. 

[28] Loc. tit. ch. XVIII, p. 121. 

[29] Op. tit. ch. XX, p. 145. 

[30] Loc. tit. ch. XX, p. 145. 

[31] Id. Ibid. ch. XVIII, p. 121. 

[32] The Kingdom of God is Within You, ch. IX, p. 237. 

[33] The Slavery of Our Times, ch. X, p. 41. 



of enslavement (34), by means of tribute and taxes (35). In 
modern times, since the discovery of America and the 
development of trade and the influx of gold, which is 
accepted as the universal money standard, the monetary 
tribute becomes, with the enforcement of the political 
power, the chief instrument of the enslavement of men (36), 
and upon it all the economic relation of men are based (37). 

II 

Discussing money, Tolstoy cannot separate the eco- 
nomic question from the political. To him it appears in- 
evitable that money performes a social service equivalent to 
the instrument of extortion. He does not take into conside- 
ration those inumerable utilities which circulating medium 
renders to the community and particularly to the commer- 
cial world, facilitating the transfer as well as aggregation 
of capital. " Chremmatistics" teaches us that money is the 
most general form of capital, capital in the fluid state, so 
that it can be immediately turned to new enterprises and 
transfered for investment to distant places. On the other 
hand, capital in the form of money is the most convenient 
vehicle of production and distribution of wealth. Tolstoy, 
as a medieval canonist, regards capital and wealth to be 
shameful and criminal things. He absolutely repudiates 
the theory that in all production only three factors take 
part : land, capital and labor. His disconcerting controversy 
in these matters contains nothing fundamentally new in 
political economy, but it is an odd manner in which he 
couches the notion of money in relation to production. 

It seems strange, Tolstoy's theory runs, that economists 
do not recognize the natural objects in production of wealth. 
The power of the sun, water, food, air, and social security, 
are the requisites of production as much as the land or capi- 
tal. Education, knowledge, and ability to speak are certain 

[34] The first method of the enslavement of men is by means of per- 
sonal violence, according to Tolstoy, and second is by depriving people 
of their land. [Cf. What Shall We Do Then, ch. XX, p. 142-43]. 

[35] What Shall We Do Then, ch. XX. p. 144. 

[36] Id. Ibid. ch. XVIII, p. 111. 

[37] For the sound discussion on function of money, which is avowedly 
opposite to Tolstoy's theory, see W. S. Jevons, Money and the Mechanism 
of Exchange, ch. III. — J. L. Laughlin, The Principles of Money, ch. I. — 
F. A. Walker, Money, ch. I. [1883]. — E. B. Bawerk, Positive Theorie 
des Capitals, bch. II, abt. II-III. [1902]. — C. Jannet, Capital, ch. II-III. 
For a different and sounder interpretation of taxes and taxation, see 
the excellent book, Introduction to Public Finance, by Prof. C.C.Plehn. 
N. York, 1896. 



agents of production. I could fill a whole volume, says Tol- 
stoy, with such omitted factors, and put them at the basis 
of science (38). The division into three factors of production 
is not proper to men. It is improper, arbitrary, and senseless. 
It does not lie in the essence of things themselves. 

By its division of the factors of production, proceeds our 
author, science affirms that the natural condition of the la- 
borer is that unnatural'condition in which he is; just as in 
the ancient world they affirmed, in dividing people into 
citizens and slaves, that the unnatural condition of the 
slaves is a natural property of man. This division, which is 
accepted by science only in order to justify the existing 
evil, which is placed by it at the basis of all its investigations, 
has had this effect, that science tries in vain to give ex- 
planations of existing phenomena, and denying the clearest 
and simplest answers to questions that present them, 
it gives answers which are devoid of content. The question 
of economic science is as follows: What is the cause of this, 
that some men, who have land and capital, are able to en- 
slave those who have not land, and no capital? The answer 
which presents itself to common sense is this, that it is due 
to the money, which has the power of enslaving people. 
This is not due to the property of money, but because 
some have land and capital, and others have not. We 
ask, why people who have land and capital enslave 
those who have none, and we are told : because they have 
land and capital. But that is precisely what we want to 
know. The privation of the land and of the tools of labor is 
that very enslavement. The answer is like this: Facit 
dormire quia habet virtutem dormitiva. To simple people it is 
indubitable that the nearest cause of the enslavement of one 
class of men by another is money (39). They know that it is 
possible to cause more trouble with a rouble than with a 
club; it is only political economy that does not want to 
know it (40). 

These theories on money respecting production do not 
appear of such nature that they could be applied in the 
other countries besides Russia. The Russian enlightened 
feudalism of the nineteenth century gave Tolstoy excellent 
material and a good reason to attack it with all his strength, 

[38] What Shall We Do Then, ch. XVII, p. 102. 
[39] hoc. cit. ch. XVII, p. 109. 
[40] Id. Ibid. ch. XVIII, p. 124. 



8 

and he was right. But his assault on political economy for 
its "omission" to treat the natural objects in production 
of wealth, are not justifiable, and could not be admitted. 
In the first place, any better political economy does not 
consider these objects at length, because nobody lays claims 
on them, as Tolstoy himself avowed this fact (41). The gifts 
of nature cannot be appropriated by any one. They are in- 
exhaustible and unlimited as compared with the wants 
of men. Therefore they never have a direct value to be taken 
as factors of productions (42). 

In modern industrial society the essential factors of pro- 
duction, among the others, are money and wealth. Wealth is 
usually regarded as the object of consumption, and as an 
agent of production (43). The idea of wealth, however, is 
often confounded with the idea of money. John S. Mill has 
justly remarked that most people regard money as wealth, 
because by that means they provide almost all their neces- 
sities. In the same sense is the assertion of the French eco- 
nomist Charles Gide, when he noted that in all times and in 
all places except among savages, money has occupied an 
exceptional place in the thoughts and desires of men. People 
regard it, if not as the only wealth, at any rate, as by far 
the most important form of wealth. They appear to measure 
the value of all other wealth by the quantity of money that 
can be obtained in exchange for it. Eire riche, c'est avoir 
soit de V argent, soit les moyens de s'en procurer (44). 

Tolstoy of course has no clear distinction either of wealth,, 
or of money. He also confuses these notions as many authors 
before and after him. To define wealth exactly is verily a 
difficult task; and to dwell upon it impartially is perhaps 
still more difficult. There are two theories in "Plutology" 
regarding the definition of wealth: first, that wealth is 
all exchangeable and valuable commodities and second, 
that it is power. Representatives of the first theory are 
Henry Fawcet and John S. Mill, of the second, Hobbes 
and Carey. Tolstoy is nearer to those theorizers who teach 
that wealth is power, than to those who define it as commo- 
dity. Yet, we should err gravely if we assumed that between 
Tolstoy's interpretation of wealth and that of other eco- 

[41] Op. tit. ch. XVIII, p. 117. 

[42] Cf. W. Roscher, System der Volkswirtschaft, bd. I, kap. I, 31. [1906]. 
J. S. Mill, Political Economy, bk. I, ch. I, sec. 1. 

[43] Cf. A. Marschal, Principles of Economics, bk. IV, ch. VII, sec. 1. 
p. 300. [London, 1898]. 

[44] Cours d'Economie Politique, p. 310. [Paris, 1911]. 



nomists exists any conformity. For instance Carey defines 
wealth as the power to command nature. Tolstoy defines 
it as the power to command other people who have neither 
wealth nor "the signs" of wealth. "Only in the Panta- 
teuch, wealth is the highest good and reward" (45). 
In everyday life wealth is evil, deception and cause of en- 
slavement. To be honest and at the same time to 
work for Mammon, is something quite impossible (46). 
This ethical principle may be true. But our theorist forgets 
that questions of what people ought to do, and questions of 
what it will profit men and nations to do, belong to different 
categories of sciences. He forgets that ethical ideas should 
not be read into the conceptions of wealth and money when 
they are employed in their everyday sense. Prof. S. Chap- 
man (47) justly says "If our aim is to indicate what people 
ought to want instead of what they do want, we had better 
speak of ethical wealth and ethical value". 

Tolstoy was very near to those reform writers who taught 
that political economy must be regarded as a part of moral 
philosophy. But he was not the first social reformer who has 
introduced the moral elements into the study of economic 
phenomena. As it is known Aristotle's interpretations of 
money are written in the Nichomachean Ethics. The politi- 
cal economy of Plato and Xenophon rests on moral bases(48) . 
Medieval scholastics and theologians raised many problems 
which were in connection with the searching inquire as to 
what constitutes a just price, and this inquiry belonged to 
the ethics of political economy. Adam Smith and John S. 
Mill adopted the double role to be economists and at the 
same time ethical teachers (49). French economists Rossi, 
De Laveley, and Le Play, introduced ethical principle in the 
science of wealth as well. 

There are several such examples of "ethical interpreta- 
tion" of economics among the most illustrious thinkers. They 
may be exculpated for their disagreements only on the 
ground that they lived in times when social science was in 
incumbent stage, when scientific ideas were intermingled 

[45] Cp. The Complete Works, vol. XIV, p. 109. [Wiener's ed. 1905]. 

[46] Id. Ibid. p. 288. 

[47] Political Economy, ch. II, p. 60. [London, 1912]. 

[48] Cf. Histoire deUEconomie Politique en Europe, par J. A. Blanqui, 
ch III. — See also Des Raports de L'Economie Politique et de la Morale, 
par M. H. BaudriUard, lee. II. [Paris, 1883]. 

[49] See J. N. Keynes, The Scope and Method of Political Economy, 
ch. II, sec. 1, p. 62. [London, 1897]. 



10 

from one sphere of science into another Good, gentle 
Tolstoy, may also be pardoned for his "blunders of ex- 
pression" because he made them in his fanatic love of truth, 
and truth although it is truth, does not always seem 
true, says a French proverb. To treat the delicate and intri- 
cate complexity of money and wealth, and never mislead, 
one should be a higher-man, a superman. But supermen are 
not yet born in this sordid earth as fitly objected a well- 
known philosopher. 



B. Interpretation of Property. 



When two Greek law-givers, Lycurgus and Solon, im- 
posed their laws upon the Greek nation, they both had the 
same purpose — to establish the equal right of all men to the 
use of land and other properties. Plutarch, speaking of 
Lycurgus, observes that at that time "some were so poor 
that they had no inch of land, and others, of whom there 
were but few, so wealthy that they possessed all". Lycurgus 
persuaded the citizens to restore the land to common use, 
and they did so. Solon had no other end in giving laws to the 
Athenians but to set up justice among all his fellow-citizens. 
He says that ambition of the rich knows no bounds, that 
they respect neither sacred property nor public treasure, 
plundering all in defiance of the holy laws of justice. "I had 
commanded the wealthiest and most powerful to refrain 
from harming the weak, says he further, I had protected 
great and humble with a double buckler, equally strong both 
sides, without giving more to one than to the other. My ad- 
vice has been disdained. Today they are punished for it"(l). 

[1] See these quotations on Solon and Lycurgus in Property, by Ch. 
Letourneau, ch. XIV, sec. V, 6. 

[2] That property was created by law it is proved by Montesquieu 
and Bentham. In the Spirit of Laws, Montesquieu argues that civil law is 
Paladium of property, and as the people acquired by political laws li- 
berty, so they acquired by the civil laws property. [The Spirit of Laws, 
book XXVI, ch. 15]. — In The Principles of Civil Code, by J. Bentham, 
we find the same idea expressed in these words : "Property is entirely the 
creature of law... Property and law are born and must die together. 
Before the laws, there was no property; take away the laws, all pro- 
perty ceases". [The Principles of the Civil Code, pt. I, ch. VIII]. 



11 

Taken as a whole this doctrine of Lycurgus and Solon is 
not in accordance with Tolstoy's teaching on laws and 
property. But nevertheless it shows clearly that law and 
property are two indivisible civil institutions which can 
not exist separately (2). Tolstoy is in opposition to both 
of them, law and property, because they offend against hu- 
manity, especially against the commandment not to re- 
sist evil by force. 

Under the term of property here must be understood 
private or individual property. The notion of property, 
however, is not clear either in ancient or modern writers. In 
the course of human evolution property has many times 
changed its form and its substance, its meaning and its 
scope. In the societies that preceded ours, property em- 
bodied itself in a form of oppression which has been defi- 
nitely abolished once for all. As it is known slavery was 
one of the forms of private property (3). In Greece and 
Rome there were public slaves, i. e. slaves of the city, and 
slaves of the state; but most of the slaves were simply a 
part of the patrimony of the citizens. Masters had the 
right to use them for cultivation of land, or to give them 
away as presents, or to sell them, or to leave them to their 
heirs. They had the legal right of imprisoning and fettering 
the slaves, or separating them from their wives, or forbid- 
ding them to marry. The slaves were part of the master's 
private ownership, and he disposed of them as he pleased. 
In the Roman laws, and also in the laws of Athens, we find 
that a father could sell his son. This was because the father 
might dispose of all the property of the family, and the son 
might be looked upon as property, since his labor was a 
source of income (4) . The best Greek and Roman philoso- 
phers saw nothing unlawful in that. Their conceptions 
of the respective rights and duties of masters and slaves 
would not clash in the least with the ideas even now in 
equatorial Africa,, and some other European colonies else- 
where. 

Between these old institutions of slavery and modern 
capitalistic systems, Tolstoy was not able to find any 
great differences. To him the institution of slavery existed 
even in his time only in other form than it was in Greece, 

[3] Cf. Ch. Letourneau, Property, ch. XIV and XV. See also Aristotle's 
Politics, bk. I, ch. VIII. 

[4] Cf. F. de Coulange, Cite Antique, English by W. Small, 1901, 
book II, eh. VIII, p. 120. 



12 

India, and Rome. And the reason why this slavery existed 
lies in the institution of private property. If it be true, 
Tolstoy suggests, that property has its origin only in labor, 
why so many combats, revolutions, and wars? Why so 
many luxuries, robberies, and debaucheries? Are these 
vices not originated in personal or private property? 
Is it true that property and money represent labor? By 
no means, answers our philosopher. Property may be re- 
presented by money, and vice versa, but money has in our 
time completely lost that desirable significance as a re- 
presentative of labor; such a significance it has only excepti- 
onally, for as a general rule it has become a right or a pos- 
sibility for exploiting the labor of others. Money is a new 
form of slavery, which differs from the old only in being im- 
personal, and in freeing people from the human relations 
of the slave (5). 

In a revolutionary article, To the Working People, 
written in 1902, three years before the Russian Revolution, 
Tolstoy attempted to open the eyes of the people stating 
that they were deprived of the land which they formerly 
possessed and were forced to come to the cities, as wage- 
workers, or practically, as slaves. The working people in 
manufacturing cities are in complete slavish dependence 
on their masters. These slaves may be liberated from the 
chains in which they are fettered in no way, except by 
the abolition of private and capitalistic property, that is, 
giving the land to the people who work, and not to the 
people who live by the unearned increment. He adds that 
rural laborers have nothing to do with socialistic doctri- 
naires who propose the diminution of hours of work and 
raising of wages, by strikes, unions, and childish proces- 
sions with flags on the first of May. They need not send 
into parliaments the representatives who fight there 
"about words, with words, and for words", as sometimes 
Lassalle reproached the "bourgeois" representatives. The 
working men who leave the land and live by factory labor 
must find some other means to rid themselves of the sla- 
very. They should ask and demand of their masters and 
rulers the right to settle on the land, and to work there. In 
demanding this, they will not be demanding something 
not their own, not belonging to them, but the restitution 
of their most unquestionable and inalienable right, which is 

[5] What Shall We Do Then, ch. XXI. p. 163. 



13 

inherent in every living being, to live on the land and get 
their sustenance from it, without asking permission from 
anyone else to do so. To be sure, masters and rulers will not 
give the people the land which they demand. Governments 
are in power to prevent this claim. But governments have 
no power without police and army, and who are the con- 
stituents of this army and police? People, workingmen. 
When these laborers refuse to serve the unchristian and 
brutal commands of the governments, then people can 
divide and take as much land as they need for culti- 
vation and their living. 

Should it not be robbery to take the possessions of 
people who accumulated them for hundreds and thousands 
years? Yes, but how did these upper classes accumulate 
their property and riches? Tolstoy replies on this question 
together with his teacher Proudhon: They heaped up their 
properties by theft from other people. La propriete c'est le 
vol, said Proudhon (6) . Sobstvenost est koren zla (Property is 
the root of evil), continues his disciple, by the same axio- 
matic language as the master (7). 

Is this statement categorical? From the standpoint of 
Proudhon and Tolstoy it is, but from the point of view 
of economists this doctrine is at fault. The Russian ico- 
noclast, Tolstoy, like the American advocate of Single 
Tax, George, maintains that the land question may be 
solvedsimply by restoration of the land to the people who 
work on it. This is, undoubtedly, the best, the easiest, and 
quickest way to make private property common and 
equitable, but what do history and economics say of this 
quaes tio vexata. 



II 

It is not needful here to go with historians and jurists far 
beyond the Greek and Roman lawyers in this inquiry. Let 
us begin the discussion with Plato and Aristotle. We know 
already that Plato in his Republic is a communist. He 
permits no citizen to have any property of his own beyond 
what is absolutely necessary. The land is divided into 
equal parts among all the citizens, in order that all may 

[6] Cf. Qu'est ce que la Propriete, 1840, English translation by B, 
Tucker, 1876, First Memoir, ch. I. 

[7] What Shall We Do Then, ch. 39. Wiener's ed. p. 318. 



14 

be interested in the defence of the country (8). This com- 
munism of Plato was vigorously combated by Aristotle in 
a brief passage of The Politics, which contains many of the 
best arguments since used on that side of the contro- 
versy (9). However, Aristotle was not an exclusive indivi- 
dualist. He wants in a state, Private property and common 
use. In Plato's judgment, the state should be governed in the 
reverse way, Common property and private use. In Greek 
history we find a constant srtuggle about these questions 
of inequality among people and private dominion of land. 
But the ideas of communism and social possessions among 
ancient nations are prevalent. The learned historian, Theo. 
Mommsen, in his Roemische Geschichte stated that in the 
earliest times the arable land was cultivated in common, 
and it was not till later that land came to be distributed 
among the burgesses as their own property (10). Mommsen's 
thesis is based on the quotations of Cicero ( 1 1) , Dionysius 
of Halicarnassus, and Plutarch. In later time it is supported 
by the historian, P. Viollet (12), economist E. de La- 
veley (13), sociologists Ch. LetOurneau (14), Sir Henry 
Main (15), and almost all socialist writers (16). 

During the Middle Ages the idea of common ownership 
was theoretically maintained by church Fathers and their 

[8] Plato's view on property is expressed in The Republic, bk. Ill, IV, 
V and VIII. Then in The Laws, bk. Ill, where he speaks of distribution 
of land and equalizing of property. In the same work, he further on 
says that property does not belong to the individual but to the whole 
family, and property and family alike belong to the State, The Laws, b . XI 

[9] "I do not think", says Aristotle, "that property ought to be com- 
mon". [The Politics, bk. VII, ch. 10]. On the other place he argues that 
there are two things which principally inspire mankind with care and 
affection, namely, the sense of what is one's own, and exclusive pos- 
session. [The Politics, bk. II, ch. IV] 

[10] In aeltester Zeit das Ackerland gemeinschaftlich, wahrsch- 
einlich nach den einzelnen Geschlechtsgenossenschaften bestellt und 
erst der Ertrag unter die einzelnen dem Geschlecht angehoerigen 
Haeuser vertheilt ward... erst spaeter das Land unter die Buerger zu 
Sondereigenthum aufgetheilt ward. [ Roemische Geschichte, 2te A- 
uflage, 1856, bd. I, st. 171-72.] 

[11] Turn [zur Zeit des Romulus] erat res in pecore et locorum pos- 
sessionibus, ex quo pecuniosi et locupletos vocabantur. — • [Numa] pri- 
mum agros, quos bello Romulus ceperat, divisit viritim civibus. [Cited 
by Mommsen from De Republca, 2, 9, 14.] 

[12] Du Caractere Collectif des Premieres Proprietes Immobilieres, 1872. 

[13] De la Propriety etdesesFormese Primitives, 1874. [English tr. 1878] 

[14] UEvolution de la Propriete, 1888. [English translation, 1892]. 

[15] Ancient Law, ch. VIII. London, 1861. 

[16] Especially P. Lafargue, The Evolution of Property, 1908. 



15 

followers, on the basis of Christ's teaching which perpetu- 
ally sympathized with the poor. St. Fathers regarded com- 
munity of goods as the ideal order of society, private pro- 
perty as a necessary evil, trade as an occupation hardly 
compatible with the character of a devout Christian, and the 
receipt of interest for the use of money as altogether sinful. 
They said that individual property is contrary to the Divine 
Law, therefore Omnia debent esse communia. These princi- 
ples could never be applied with logical severity. Eccle- 
siastics theoretically preached equality of men, and in 
practice they were the wealthiest class among other classes. 
Roderigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI. was one of the 
richest men of his time (17). The luxury, immorality and 
privileged wealth of clergy caused the Reformation, but 
the Reformation could not restrain the clergy from acquiring 
immense private possessions. Communism of the Middle 
Ages was then a pure utopia, as it is today. 

In the philosophy of the 17th. 18th, and 19th centuries 
the institution of private property was justified by many 
jurisconsults, reformers, and philosophers who, based their 
teachings on human nature. Among these are significant the- 
ories of Grotius, Locke, Hobbes, Thiers (18), and Coulan- 
ges (19). In opposition to these writers we find, throughout 
the French Revolution and later on, the writers who as- 
sailed private property as pernicious. Rousseau expressed 
himself with all his fervid eloquence upon this theme, and 
he found a large public to sympathize with his de- 
clamations. Rousseau was the inspirer of those revolutio- 
nary writers, inferior in genius but equally daring, who 
helped to diffuse his doctrines. Mirabeau and Robespierre 
were also Rousseau's adherents. Even the socialists, 
though they have dropped some of his first principles and 
have adopted some of the conclusions of modern science, 
have inherited no small portion of his spirit (20). 

[17] On this Pope, Professor P. Villari says: "One of his strongest 
passions was an insatiable greed for gold... he accumulated the immense 
fortune that served to raise him to the papacy"... SeeStoria diGirolamo 
Savonarola e de* suvi tempi, 1859. English by LI. Villari, 1909, ch. IX, 152. 

[18] The Rights of Property, by A. Thiers, London, 1848. 

[19] The Origin of Property in Land, by F. de Coulanges. English 
translation, London, 1891. 

[20[ On the private property during the French Revolution see Le 
Socialisme et la Revolution Francaise, par Dr. A. Lichtenberg, Paris, 1899, 
ch. VII, 1. Another valuable book on this subject is The French Revolution 
and Modern French Socialism, by Dr. J. B. Peixotto, New York, 1901, 
ch. I, 4; ch. Ill, 3; and ch. VI, 2. 



16 

In America we find many of Rousseau's followers who 
were inspired by philosophers of the French Revolution. 
Among these followers is Henry George (21), and in Russia, 
Tolstoy. The difference between these two reformers is that 
George would put the rent of real property in the hand 
of government for better and more righteous taxation than 
is now the case. Tolstoy, meanwhile, is against all taxation, 
because it can only be collected by force, and all force is for- 
bidden by Christ. George is for nationalization of land, 
Tolstoy for full communalization, against all government 
and all state ownership (22). 

Tolstoy is, indubitably, influenced by Rousseau, Proud- 
hon, and anarcho-communistic writers of the nineteenth 
century. His teaching of property has many elements of chi- 
merical schemes, sometimes confounded with mediaeval 
communism and Christian primitive Utopias, sometimes 
with anarchistic principles which reject both private and 
social property. The labor question is solved by Tolstoy 
simply in the destruction of private ownership and in the 
distribution of land to the people who work manually. 
Mental labor and intellectual production are ignored and 
disdained. In many books printed during Tolstoy's life 
we find "no rights reserved". Literary property, accor- 
dingly, is the common property of mankind. Ideas and facts 
are free to all men. There are no patents and copyrights 
of mental exertions cum privilegio. The author of a work has 
no right of property in the book he has made; he took the 
common stock and worked it over, and one man has just as 
good a right to it as another. If the author is allowed to 
be the owner of his works, the public are deprived of their 
rights. The immaterial property in writing is in the same 
degree a robbery as it is material. 

Finally, literary labor does not belong to this question. 
According to Tolstoy's interpretation, inventions, arts, lite- 
rature, and science, are privileged only to the higher classes. 
The class of people exclusively occupied with physical labor 

[21[ See Progress and Property, by H. George, 1879, bk. VII-VIII. 
Tolstoy mentioned George in several of his political articles, and wrote 
Two Letters on Henry George, 1893. In Wiener's translations of the Com- 
plete Works of Count Tolstoy, these Two Letters are published in 
volume XXIII, pp. 396-401. 

[22] A parallel drawn between George's and Tolstoy's theory of pro- 
perty may be found in C. B. Fillebrown, The ABC of Taxation, App. B. 
pp. 168-170. [New York, 1909]. 



17 

nowhere read books, neither have the masses learned from 
books to plough, to make kvas, to weave, to make shoes, to 
build huts, to sing songs, or even to pray. 

Of this Tolstoy's criticism of literature, science, and 
private property, were cogent objections. He was called an 
Utopian, a sophist, an inconsistent author who speaks one 
thing and works something else. Some called him charlatan, 
destroyer of sacred institutions, and a man who did not 
know what he was preaching. These epithets remind one 
of that which Jean Bodin gave to Machiavelli calling him 
a "butt of invective", and "wretched man", or of those 
names which Voltaire gave Rousseau honoring him as 
a "Punchinello of letters", "the fanfaron of ink", "arch- 
madman", "scoundrel", "mountebank", and other choice 
epithets. 

Such criticism might be valuable and apropos to a certain 
sort of newspapers, but not to serious investigators and 
critics. Throwing this kind of adjectives at an author, does 
not mean that he is really wrong. Indeed, Tolstoy's doctrine 
of abolishing individual ownership constitutes no valid 
grounds for criticism of the historic right of private pro- 
perty in land. Most of his great expectations would not be 
realized. The problems of wealth distribution, land, and 
money, are much deeper and more complex than he presu- 
med. They cannot be explained solely by a theory, nor 
solved by refusing to serve in military and state obligations. 
They are the inheritance of the present generation from 
a long past, the resultant of a complex of forces, material and 
spiritual, political, economic, moral, and social. They can 
only be unraveled by a most minute and careful study 
of historical records, interpreted by the aid of the best re- 
sults of the thought of economists, sociologists, and politi- 
cians. And yet, in many ways, Tolstoy aided the solution 
of these problems. He helped to accelerate it by the example 
he set of earnestness, altruism, and intense devotion to ide- 
als which he made the creed of future society. 



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